


Home Cooking

by stingerpicnic (ibelieveinfiction)



Series: have i told you that I love you? a thousand times in a thousand ways (Snufmin Week 2019) [2]
Category: Moominvalley (Cartoon 2019), Mumintroll | Moomins Series - Tove Jansson, 楽しいムーミン一家 | Moomin (Anime 1990)
Genre: First Date, First Kiss, Humor, M/M, Moomin is Full Of Love, Moomin learns to cook, Moomin.exe has stopped working, Or Is It?, Snufmin Week 2019, Snusmumriken | Snufkin Has Paws and a Tail, because snufkin needs to eat something besides fish and stew, i think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-24 07:11:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19168330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ibelieveinfiction/pseuds/stingerpicnic
Summary: Moomin thinks that Snufkin deserves to have a home. He'll do anything to be able to give him as much of a home as he'll accept. Including finally doing something about his terrible track record in the kitchen and learning to cook and subsequently inviting Snufkin to dinner to show off his new skills.If anyone asks, he'll claim the romantic lighting was entirely necessary. Snufkin doesn't much like synthetic lighting after all, and he'll do anything to make him comfortable.





	Home Cooking

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kittyorange](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittyorange/gifts).



> Based off a conversation between me and [@candycorncartooncat](https://candycorncartooncat.tumblr.com/) (tumblr)/[@kittyorange](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittyorange/pseuds/kittyorange) (ao3)! We have a lot of fun together and they have very good ideas!! Y'all should check them out!!
> 
> Written for Snufmin Week 2019. Day Two: Home

It’s a bright spring morning when Moomin looks out his window and sees Snufkin sitting at his cookfire. He’s cooking breakfast, obviously. His pot isn't on the fire, so Moomin thinks he must be roasting fish. Really, though the food that Snufkin makes is certainly _good,_ there’s not a terribly large number of things he makes for himself. Guessing what he’s cooking isn’t too difficult.

He almost wants to go down and join Snufkin for breakfast, but he can smell Moominmamma’s pancakes all the way up in his room and he’s not in the mood for fish, really. Though going down now would give him a closer look at Snufkin cooking, which would be nice. Looking at Snufkin is _always_ nice, especially when he’s close enough to see the adorable freckles that are scattered across his face in a mirror of the stars he loves so much. But for now he’ll content himself with looking from a distance. It’s much easier to stare when he’s confident he won’t be caught after all, even if he _does_ lose most of the detail.

Maybe one day Snufkin will join  _him_ for breakfast. A breakfast that isn't soup or stew and doesn't contain any fish at all. Maybe it'll happen in there own little house, too.

He hears Moominmamma calling him down for breakfast, so he shakes away his fantasy and forces himself to look away so he can make his way down to the table.

It’s just then, as he sits down and tucks into the delicious pancakes that his Mamma lovingly made for their little family, that Moomin has an idea.

It's a good idea, he thinks. A great idea, even. Cooking is a skill that everyone should learn and it is _really_ time he learned himself. And he _should_ know how to cook for himself, even if things don’t pan out the way he wants them too. He can’t rely on other people for his food forever.  

The only sticking point is that learning to might be a _touch_ difficult for him to actually pull off.

After all, saying that Moomin is bad at cooking may be… a _bit_ of an understatement if he’s being entirely honest with himself. And even if he _didn’t_ make it a habit to be honest with himself, it would be difficult truth to deny. Generally, people who are considered to be good or even okay in the kitchen never think it’s anything even approaching a good idea to put gunpowder in pancakes.

In his defense, he thought it would give them the explosion of flavor that Moominmamma’s pancakes always have. Perhaps that’s not a very _good_ defense, but it’s what he has.

In any case, he knows now he may have been taking everything just a bit too literally. And that gunpowder doesn’t belong in _any_ food.

He’s certain Moominmamma will be willing to help him figure everything out, though. And he’s confident that however much difficulty he ends up going through will be worth it. He’s doing this for Snufkin, so of _course_ it will be worth it.

He wants to give this to Snufkin. He wants to be _able_ to give this to Snufkin, this feeling of being at _home_ he gets when he sits down with his family to eat. He knows Snufkin will never agree to live in an actual house with him, at least not all the time, even if he _does_ one day work up the courage to tell him he might maybe _possibly_ have feelings for him that run deeper than just friendship.

But a _house_ isn’t necessarily required for someone to have a _home,_ he thinks. And while, yes, Moomin _does_ think of Moominhouse when he thinks of home, it’s not _just_ the house itself that he thinks of. In fact, just Moominhouse alone would hardly constitute a home in his mind if it stood empty and abandoned.

No, home is more of a _feeling,_ he thinks. It’s a feeling created by a whole host of things. It’s people who love him and people he loves back. It’s laughter and warmth. It’s good conversation and  _better_  company. It’s home cooked meals eaten together.

He can already give Snufkin most of those things, he thinks, if he would only accept it. He’s willing to offer him as much love and care and kindness as he can bare, even if he can only do it as a friend.

Snufkin deserves everything he can give him. And he _definitely_ deserves some good home cooked meals. Really, he needs to eat more than roasted fish and variations on fish stew, Moomin thinks. He’s caught him sighing into his food when he thinks no one is paying attention on the occasions that he’s agreed to join them for a meal to know that he _does_ like other things. The compliments he pays Moominmamma every time could possibly be explained away by his manners, but those little happy sighs can’t be explained by _anything_ else other than him genuinely enjoying the food.

Moomin  _really_ wants to be the cause of those little sighs.

He waits until breakfast is over and Moominpappa has gone up to his study to work on his memoirs and Little My has run off to cause whatever sort of trouble she’s going to cause today before he approaches Moominmamma.

“Mamma,” he starts, trying to force as much confidence and determination into his voice as possible, “I want to learn how to cook like you.”

“That’s splendid, dear! What’s brought this on? You’ve never shown much interest in cooking before now,” she says, sounding like she might just know _exactly_ why. “Is it related to the reason you wanted to learn to knit last year?” she asks, a kind smile on her face.

“...It might be,” he says. Last year he asked her to teach him how to knit just so he could make Snufkin a new scarf for his winter travels. His old one was beginning to look so tattered that Moomin was starting to doubt it could actually keep him warm. So he had made him a new one and made sure to drag it through the mud a few times and wash it several times so Snufkin might actually accept it. It had looked a little ragged in the end and there were some mistakes in the knitwork, but he tested it himself and it was _definitely_ warm.

He didn't actually tell Moominmamma what he wanted to learn for at the time, but she always has a way of just _knowing_ things so he’s sure she knows _exactly_ what he did with his new skill. There really was no other explanation for the new scarf that just appeared around Snufkin’s neck one day anyways.

He’s tempted to be embarrassed, but Moominmamma just smiles at him in a way that tells him he doesn’t have to be.

“Well, we might as well get started, dear. I know just the dish we should start with,” she says, leading him into the kitchen and running him through the absolute basics. She starts with how to properly use the stove and the oven and where all the ingredients are and how to tell if they're still good. He almost feels like he should be ashamed that she has to start at such a low level, but her voice is too kind for that.

He is _incredibly_ thankful that Moominmamma is as endlessly patient as she is. This is going to take a while, he’s sure. But he _will_ do this. For Snufkin. Even if he doesn’t leave the kitchen for days, he’s going to at least be able to make whatever dish Moominmamma is thinking of and make it well. Everything else will probably take far longer, but he can certainly learn to make a dish or two. He has to start somewhere.

Moomin is barely even surprised when the dish she had in mind turns out to be one of Snufkin’s favorites.

* * *

Snufkin hasn’t seen Moomintroll in days.

Now, that in and of itself isn’t actually that odd. Snufkin has been known to leave so he can be alone for a few days and then come back. And when he comes back, Moomintroll is always excited to see him and eager to spend with him. _Always._ And Snufkin is always filled with the (really, wholly inappropriate) love he harbors for his best friend when he sees that bright smile light up Moomintroll’s face the second he realizes he’s back. That’s all normal.

What _isn’t_ normal, is for Snufkin to not see Moomintroll even _once_ in _four days_ when he’s been very accessible to him the whole time. It was even more odd for Moominmamma to distract him and send him on his way when he went to Moominhouse to ask after him.

He had _wanted_ to ask Moomintroll to come explore with him so he could show him a piece of the forest he found that had a particularly _beautiful_ view. The way there was just slightly dangerous, which he might have used as an excuse to hold Moomintroll’s paw. And then maybe once they got there he would have distracted Moomintroll until they had stayed out late enough to stargaze. At which point it’s _possible_ he may have let his paw fall from pointing out specific stars in such a way that it would land on Moomintroll’s and he would have another excuse to hold his paw again.

But it’s not like he was planning anything.

In any case, he’s not going to go there alone again. The view may have been beautiful, but it’s _nothing_ compared to the expression he’s sure would be on Moomintroll’s face when he saw it himself.

Has he done something wrong? He doesn’t _think_ he’s done anything that would upset Moomintroll recently.

He quickly runs over the events of the days leading up to when Moomintroll started to avoid him, just to make sure. No, he hadn’t done anything that had ever made him upset before. He hadn’t even been distant enough to make his friend believe he might need space. In fact he had been quite the opposite. He’d accepted and returned every one of the smiles and affectionate touches Moomintroll had offered him because he had _wanted_ to and he was so _so_ tired of always denying himself. Really, there was _no reason_ for Moomintroll to not want to see him.

Unless--

Ice cold dread stops his heart and settles heavily in his stomach like he’s swallowed a bag full of frozen ball bearings as an absolutely _horrifying_ possibility occurs to him.

Moomintroll figured it out, didn’t he? He figured out that his best friend is in love with him. He figured it and now he must hate him for violating his friendship, his _trust_ like this.

Snufkin is going to lose the single best thing in his life because he can’t manage to keep his heart in check, isn’t he?

He’s always known he shouldn’t get attached. He’s always known he would get hurt if he did. And now, he thinks as he feels his throat start to constrict, and _now…._

He’s never going to get another hug from Moomintroll. He’s never going to have another long, wandering conversation with him as they explore the valley. He’s never going to hear his laugh again or see his smile. He’s never going to see his entire face light up brighter than the sun at its brightest upon seeing him again. He’s never--

“Snufkin!” And just like that Snufkin’s worries evaporate. He feels a smile steal onto his face and his tail stop it’s distressed twitching to perk up behind him. Everything is okay, because Moomintroll is running toward him with a smile on his face and shouting his name like he’s excited to see him again.

“Moomintroll!” he says with genuine happiness when he gets closer. He was being quite silly, wasn’t he? Of course Moomintroll doesn’t hate him, he was probably just busy with something.

“Snufkin! I wanted to ask you if you, um, maybe wanted to come inside for dinner today?” Moomintroll is clutching his tail like he’s nervous about something, which doesn’t make a lot of sense to Snufkin, he’s never been shy about asking him to eat with his family before. But he’s also shifting about like he’s excited, too, which is far more usual for this sort of request. But with the nerves he’s showing it only confuses Snufkin more.

“Of course, I’d be happy to eat with your family tonight,” he says. If he’s being honest, he’s a little disappointed that the first thing Moomintroll asks him to do after not seeing him for days _isn’t_ to run off somewhere where they can be alone and chat and is instead an invitation to specifically _not_ be alone. But he’s willing to eat inside with however many people will show up to dinner if it means he can spend time with Moomintroll today. And it will be nice to have something different to eat. Moominmamma's cooking is  _very_ good.

“Oh, um, no, they won’t--” he’s clutching at his tail even harder now, it looks almost painful and Snufkin feels a sympathetic twinge run through his own, “I meant that you would have dinner with me alone. Everyone else will be out of the house tonight.” And just like that all of Snufkin’s thoughts come screeching to a halt.

“What?” he says. Suddenly Moomintroll’s nervousness and anxious excitement are starting to make sense.

He almost doesn’t want to allow himself to _hope,_ but he feels the feeling flutter in his heart against his better judgement anyway.

He’ll probably be disappointed. He’s _been_ disappointed far too many times in the past. He’s assumed far too many things far too many times and been wrong each and every time.

But, a voice whispers in the back of his mind, but _maybe._ Maybe _this time_ he’s actually right and Moomintroll is really, _truly_ suggesting--

“Well, Mamma and Pappa are going out on an adventure tonight and Little My is staying with her sister, so it’ll only be the two of us,” he says.

“Oh. Of course I’ll have dinner with you, Moomintroll,” he says, offering him a fond smile.

“Great! That’s great! I have to go, um, prepare a couple things, but I’ll come get you when everything is ready!” Moomintroll says before running off again, gone as quickly as he appeared.

Snufkin is left alone again and now there’s really only one thought on his mind. An impossible, ill-advised, deliriously _hopeful_ thought.

Did Moomintroll just ask him on a date?

* * *

Moomintroll comes back to get him a few hours later. Snufkin wonders what he could have been doing that took him so long. Heating up whatever Moominmamma must have left them for dinner and setting the table can’t be the work of several _hours,_ surely.

Oh dear, maybe he should have tagged along. Moomintroll wasn’t very good in the kitchen. But then again, he hadn’t heard any explosions and Moominhouse didn’t _appear_ to be on fire or anything. So everything was probably fine.

If only everything was going fine with _him._

Snufkin, for his part, has spent the past few hours panicking.

It’s just, he’s never had to wait this long before having his hopes crushed. Usually Moomintroll does something that makes him think that this is _it,_ that he’s finally either going to call him out on his feelings or express some sort of feelings himself, and then proves him wrong in a matter of minutes. And even when it’s taken a bit longer for him to unknowingly dash all of Snufkin’s hopes against the hard ground, he’s never really been forced to be alone with his thoughts for much of that time.

But Snufkin has been alone with his thoughts for several hours now. Usually, he wouldn’t mind that, might even _like_ that. But _usually_ his thoughts aren’t trying their best to convince him that Moomintroll, his best friend and secret love, just _asked him on a date._

He _had_ managed to convince himself to hold off on making any firm conclusions about the whole maybe, maybe not a date thing, but only just. He still counts that as a win. He may not be able to force the hope that this _is_ a date out of his heart, but he _can_ keep himself from actually assuming it is.

As Moomintroll grabs his paw and leads him back to Moominhouse, he fixes his resolution in his mind. He will _not_ assume this is a date until Moomintroll expressly says that it is. He _won’t._ It shouldn’t be that difficult. They’ve eaten dinner together plenty of times without it being a date. This didn’t have to be any different.

But then they walk through the door and that resolution is suddenly _very_ difficult to keep.

Moomintroll has turned the main lights off and placed lanterns in the corners, casting the entire room in soft shadow and warm firelight. It’s terribly romantic lighting, Snufkin thinks. His heart can barely take it.

He notes, distantly, that it looks like they won’t be dining at the main table tonight. No, Moomintroll has dragged a smaller table from who knows where into the center of the room and dressed it all up for their dinner. There’s even a tablecloth. And, by the _ocean_ , there are _candles_ sitting ever so innocently at its center.

How on _earth_ is he supposed to get through this without thinking that they’re on a date.

“Is the lighting okay?” Moomintroll asks, looking back at him where he’s stopped just inside the doorway. He’s fidgeting with his tail again. “I know you don’t like eating inside very much and since we’re alone and no one will mind I thought I would try to replicate firelight,” he says. Then much quieter, so quiet Snufkin almost thinks he’s imagining it, “I want you to feel at home here.”

Well at least now he has a plausibly platonic reason for the lighting to cling to. Though he’s not sure that’s any better than just trying to deal with it without any context, because that reason is so incredibly sweet he thinks he just might cry. The truth of the depth of Moomintroll’s care and consideration for him is possibly one the single most romantic things he’s ever known.

“It’s great. That’s very kind of you, Moomintroll,” he forces himself to say in a normal sounding voice. The smile Moomintroll shoots him makes the effort that takes more than worth it.

And then Snufkin actually spots what they’ll be having for dinner. It’s his favorite dish that Moominmamma has ever made him. Because of _course_ it is. Why _wouldn’t_ it be his favorite? Of course they’re going to be be alone together and eating his favorite food at a tiny table for two all while bathed in candlelight, he thinks a little hysterically. That’s a normal activity. This still isn’t a date.

Moomintroll ushers him to sit, completely oblivious to internal screaming that’s filling Snufkin’s mind.

And then he sits down across from him. The table is so small that their legs brush beneath the tablecloth. And that’s nice, sure. It’s great, even. But the thing that actually makes Snufkin struggle to control his breathing is the sight of Moomintroll across from him, bathed in the warm natural hues of the tiny fires burning all around them.

He’s _beautiful._

Snufkin wonders what he did to deserve this. He doesn’t know if whatever it is he did was very good or very bad. It’s hard to tell, because this is simultaneously the best thing he’s ever even _dreamed_ of experiencing and the worst torture imaginable.

Snufkin takes a bite of his food to keep himself from saying anything, trying his best to seem normal and nonchalant about it and very much _not_ like he’s scrambling things to say and reasons to believe this isn't a date and having a _very_ difficult time tearing his eyes away from his best friend.

The food is incredible, as always. Moominmamma is great in the kitchen and he would never do her the disservice of expecting anything different.

“Moominmamma did a good job with this,” he says while staring at his plate. That’s a safe topic to start with. It can't possibly lead anywhere romantic. “It’s very good.”

Then he risks another glance back up and immediately feels raw affection lance through his heart and punch the air out of his lungs.

 _Stars,_ he hadn’t thought Moomintroll could get any more beautiful. But the bright, excited smile that’s spilled across his face is doing a wonderful job proving him wrong.

“Mamma didn’t make it,” he says proudly, excitedly, _brightly_ , like he’s not throwing Snufkin’s entire world in chaos with so few words, “I did.” He almost sounds like he’s trying not to cry, Snufkin thinks, but maybe he’s just imagining things.

“Oh,” he says weakly. _Moomintroll_ made it? “You made it?”

Suddenly, the hope in his heart is just a little bit stronger, a little bit louder.

“Yes! I did! It took me four days to learn how to make it and it was very difficult, of course,” he says, silently acknowledging his infamous trouble in the kitchen. “And sometimes I felt like I was just never going to get the hang of it and I should just give up,” he tacks on quietly.

So _that’s_ what he was doing for those four days Snufkin hadn’t seen him. He was planning this. He was _learning a whole new skill_ just to pull this off.

Snufkin forcibly pushes down the hope that’s insistently fluttering in his chest. None of this confirms _anything._ It _doesn’t._

But, by the _ocean_ does it make it difficult to ignore the possibility that it _does._

“But then I would remember what I was doing it all for!” Moomintroll says, much more brightly, “I was doing it so I could finally do this for you. So I could finally _give_ this to you. And then I could _keep_ doing this for you, whenever you wanted, because it’s a whole new skill I learned. I remembered all that and suddenly I was motivated again.”

Oh. _Oh._ Well. That’s certainly something, isn’t it?

“Why?” Snufkin asks, because he needs to know. He can’t take another moment of this wonderful, terrible hope that’s taken root in his chest. Is Moomin doing this because of their friendship? Or is he doing this because he maybe, possibly, _incomprehensibly_ shares his regard for him?

The bright, soft smile on Moomintroll’s face is liable to break Snufkin’s heart.

Moomintroll reaches the short distance across the table and grabs his paw. “Because you deserve to have a home you can come back to, Snufkin. Even if it’s never a house, you should still have a _home._ There’s lots of things that make up a home other than a house. And I want to give you as much of that feeling of home as I can. As often or as rarely as you’d like. I want to _be_ your home, if you’d let me,” he says. And then he lets go of his paw and finally starts eating.

Oh. _Oh._ Oh.

This _is_ a date.

* * *

Moomin hopes he’s not being too obvious with his feelings, saying stuff like that. He knows it was a bit bold, but he thinks he left enough room for Snufkin to interpret it platonically. Fortunately, he has a history of saying such things to Snufkin, so he probably won’t notice anything off.

Really, he was pushing his luck with all this. The lighting, the table, the alone time, the food. Most of this was unnecessary. He _definitely_ could have just packed the food into a picnic basket and been done with it. But, no, he had to do this whole thing.

He just wants to show Snufkin that he can offer him a good home if he would only accept it, darn it!

And _maybe_ he also wanted to see Snufkin in the candlelight, but that’s besides the point!

...That was only a small part of why he had done it, anyways. He wasn’t lying when he said he wanted Snufkin to feel comfortable inside.

Gosh, he hopes he’s not scaring Snufkin away with all this. He knows he doesn’t always do well when it comes to emotional situations like this. Especially when they’re dealing with something that he thinks could possibly lead to him being too tied down.

Moomin decides to keep quiet and eat his food until Snufkin decides to break the silence they’ve slipped into. He won’t even glance up at him too often so he can have his space to process what he’s said this evening.

It isn’t even that hard really. The food he made really _is_ good, he thinks with a spark of pride. And the silence isn’t that bad, really. Though when Snufkin finally does break it, Moomin can’t say he really misses it.

The rest of the night is nice, Moomintroll thinks. Snufkin has noticeably relaxed, talking openly and freely with him and even laughing at some of the things he says, which he’s happy about. He even reached back across the table to hold his paw, which he’s _happier_ about. He'll _always_ be happy whenever Snufkin initiates contact himself. It reassures him that he's not being too pushy or too clingy himself.

It’s all going very smoothly, really. Up until the point that it’s time for Snufkin to leave so they both can catch some sleep, his offer of a sleepover having been refused.

Because at that point, while Moomintroll stands in front of a strangely nervous, unexplainable red looking Snufkin ready to see him off, Snufkin leans forward and presses the tiniest of kisses of to his snout.

It’s miniscule, really. Barely even there at all. But it _was_ there. And he  _definitely_ did it on purpose. He _had_ to have. Snufkin knows all about Moomin kisses and there was absolutely _nothing_ around that could have _possibly_ pushed him into him.

Distantly, Moomin hears Snufkin say something about having had a good time tonight before he watches him sprint off toward his tent.

He wants to go after him. He really, _really_ does _._  He can't just let him get away with that, not without the chance to deliver some kisses in return. But his body feels like it’s been rooted to the floor and his mind is utterly blank beside his internal screaming.

Snufkin just kissed him? _Snufkin_ just kissed _him?_ Snufkin just _kissed_ him!

He doesn’t know how to react. It’s an impossible dream. It’s everything he’s ever wanted. It’s the best thing to ever happen happen to him.

It’s _real_ and it just _happened._

He wants it to happen again. He wants to know _why_ it happened. He wants to know if this means what he hopes against hope it means.

It’s that thought that gets him moving again, sprinting after Snufkin as he watches him disappear into his tent. He wants answers. He _needs_ them. Snufkin can’t just get away with _doing_ that out of the blue.

He hopes his answers end with more kisses, he really does.

He hopes that maybe he _will_ be able to give Snufkin the home he deserves. He hopes he’ll want him to _be_ that home for him.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments will be answered at the end of the week!!
> 
> In the meantime, feel free to come scream at me about these lovebirds over on my [tumblr @stingerpicnic](https://stingerpicnic.tumblr.com/)! I promise I'm friendly.


End file.
